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If Sussex County voters ruled...

By Anonymous ()

Thursday, November 15, 2012 - 6:19am

Delawareans would have a Republican president, lieutenant governor and state insurance commissioner, but otherwise, if Sussex Countians were in charge of outcome of the 2012 elections, things would pretty much have been the same.

While partisan politics has little place in local senate and representative seats, according to both Republican Rep. and Senator-elect Gerald Hocker and outgoing Democrat Sen. George H. Bunting — who worked together for years on issues/projects including the Indian River Inlet Bridge — the underlying viewpoints are revealed with a look at the numbers.

Republican Hocker received 14,290 votes, or almost two thirds of the total votes cast, compared to Democrat Richard W. Eakle’s 6,736 votes in the Nov. 6 elections for the state senator for District 20. Republican Ron Gray, who beat out former representative Shirley Price in her bid to reclaim the 38th District seat, received 7,902 votes to Price’s 5,025.

The race was much tighter in the 41st Representative District, however, where Republican-turned-Democrat John C. Atkins received just 69 votes more than his opponent, Republican Rich Collins. Atkins received 4,421 votes, or 50.4 percent, to Collins’ 4,352 votes, or 49.6 percent.

Sussex County Council President Michael Vincent, a Republican, received 100 percent of the vote in District 1, as he ran uncontested, and in District 2, Samuel R. Wilson Jr., also a Republican, received 58.1 percent, or 7,821 votes, compared to Democrat Gary M. Wolfe’s 5,299 votes. In District 3, Democrat Joan Deaver received 11,400 votes, or 55.4 percent, to Republican Donald R. Ayotte’s 9,182 votes, or 44.6 percent.

Statewide, Delaware voted to re-elect President Barack Obama, with 242,547 votes compared to Mitt Romney’s 165,476. Within Sussex County, though, the race for president looked much different, with Mitt Romney edging out President Obama with a tally of 52,166 to 39,197.

Meanwhile, though the 38th Representative District and the 20th Senatorial District went to Republicans Hocker and Gray by almost two-thirds, U.S. Sen. Thomas R. Carper (D.-Del.) beat Republican challenger Kevin Wade by almost a 2:1 ratio, with 40,739 votes to Wade’s 22,561 in Sussex County. Outspoken Carper critic and challenger Alex Pires received 5,904 votes in Sussex County and 15,300 statewide.

In addition, Gov. Jack Markell received quite a few more votes than challenger Jeffrey E. Cragg, in both Sussex County and statewide. In Sussex County, Markell received 51,439 and Cragg received 36,437. Statewide, Markell more than doubled Cragg’s numbers, with 275,991 votes to Cragg’s 113,992.

U.S. Rep. John C. Carney Jr. almost doubled Thomas H. Kovatch’s statewide votes, with 249,905 to 129,749. Locally, in Sussex County, the race was much more even, with Carney receiving 46,163 to Kovatch’s 40,065.

If Sussex County were to determine the state’s lieutenant governor, however, they would have given it to Sher Venezuela over Matt Denn, with Valenzuela receiving 44,274 votes to Denn’s 42,537. Statewide, though, Denn beat his opponent by almost 100,000 votes. He received 238,957 to her 143,978.

In addition, Sussex County would have picked Republican Benjamin Mobley over Karen Stewart Weldin for state insurance commissioner, with Mobley receiving 42,389 votes to Weldin’s 41,497. Statewide, she won easily, with 233,352 votes to his 140,669.

In Sussex County, 70 percent of registered voters cast a ballot according to Jean Turner of the Sussex County Department of Elections. That number falls between the 56 percent of registered voters who voted in 2010 and the 74 percent who voted in the 2008 election. As of October 2012, in Sussex County there were 53, 413 registered Democrats, 51,782 registered Republicans and 29,540 registered as “other,” for a total of 134,735 registered voters.

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